If you haven’t seen the Hobbit yet, go see it (the book itself is not too shabby either) If you’re too poor to see the movie and not much of a reader, then you really only need to see the trailers to understand what I’m talking about.

So humor me for a second as I apply it to real life.Early on Gandalf tells young Bilbo Baggins, “I’m looking for someone to share in an adventure.” Obviously he has something wild in mind. Actually, anything would be wild compared to the perfect peace and calm of Bilbo sitting and smoking his pipe. But he’s definitely up to something, and Bilbo doesn’t like it.

Of course it takes a little convincing. The dwarves show up at Bag End and eat Bilbo out of house and home and discuss their plans to reclaim the Lonely Mountain from Smaug the dragon. Something stirs in Bilbo, a longing for that adventure, as he listens to the dwarves singing about their lost kingdom. Deep down he wants to be a part of that story. At first he stays in his safe little Hobbit hole where there is no danger or excitement, where everything is controlled and predictable.Thank goodness he eventually answers that longing inside and joins the dwarves, because 3 hours of the daily life of a hobbit would bore me out of my skull. You can see a glimpse of the scene in the second trailer when he’s running out of Hobbiton to chase after the dwarves and he shouts, “I’m going on an adventure!”

On the journey, Bilbo develops and grows as a character. He discovers courage in himself that he never knew he had. He shows mercy towards Gollum when he has the chance to cut him down. He uses his wits to stall for time when the mountain trolls are about to eat the company of dwarves. He nearly falls of the edge of a cliff and heroically saves Thorin Oakenshield from the pale orc.Now let me introduce you to the greatest adventure of all time. The Mass! Why? Because it’s salvation history being played out right in front of our eyes. We are all like Bilbo Baggins, we have a deep longing for something more than the comforts and predictability of our lives. That’s so boring. We want an adventure. In the Mass, not only do we get to witness God’s act of salvation happen, but we participate in it, too. Those stories become our own, and we become part of the stories. The Liturgy of the Word tells those stories, and the Liturgy of the Eucharist brings it to life, makes it real!

During the Mass we learn all of the things that Bilbo learns and more: courage, mercy, compassion, humility, endurance, faith, hope, love… and we don’t just learn it, but we internalize it, make it part of our very being, by receiving the Eucharist. It takes an adventure to learn these things, a journey in which we develop ourselves. That’s what our lives are, a long journey home to heaven. We know we’re on the right path if these are what we’re developing in our very being.Every time I go to Mass now, I feel like Gandalf comes up to me and says, “I’m looking for someone to share in an adventure.” For Fr. Grogan’s sake I don’t actually do this, but in my mind I burst through the doors of the church running toward the altar and shout, “I’m going on an adventure!”